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Larrikins
Larrikins is a cancelled film from DreamWorks Animation. The film was to be written by Harry Cripps and produced by Christina Steinberg. It was set for a February 16, 2018 release, before Minchin announced the film's cancellation on March 5, 2017 . Had it been made, it would have been the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Universal Pictures, whose parent company NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks Animation in 2016. This was the second 2018 DreamWorks film to be cancelled, after The Croods 2 (until September 17, 2017, when that sequel was put back into production). Ideas and assets from the film were repurposed for the 2018 DreamWorks short Bilby. Plot When Perry, an uptight bilby gets kicked out of his sheltered life of his family burrow, he ventures out and finds himself launched on a musical adventure across the mystical Australian outback. On the way, he must battle an evil army of monsters known as the Syvalionilas, or "Syvas", for short and win the heart of his one true love, a female bilby called Bonnie. He also befriends kangaroo, Red and cane toad, Andrew, who he must team up with in order to save the empire of the wind. Cast * Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the bilby * Hugh Jackman as Red a kangaroo * Margot Robbie as a Dingo * Naomi Watts as TBA * Rose Byrne as TBA * Ben Mendelsohn as Howard a crocodile * Jacki Weaver as TBA * Josh Lawson as TBA * Damon Herriman as TBA * Ewen Leslie as TBA Gallery Videos Development In June 2013, it was announced that Tim Minchin would compose the songs and score for Larrikins, which was based on an original concept by Harry Cripps. Harry Cripps started working on the script in 2011, after DreamWorks Animation decided to make a film with an Australian story. The project was about a desert-dwelling bilby named Perry who leaves his home under a rock to go on a road trip with a music band in Australia. Minchin, who liked classical Disney animated musicals like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, had made a deal with DreamWorks Animation, after he had complained to Will Davies, one of the writers of How to Train Your Dragon, that no one had been doing such animated musical anymore. Waiting for almost four years for the right screenplay, DWA gave him the Cripps' script, which got the Minchin's attention: "...it's a bit Star Wars, a bit Gods Must Be Crazy, a big road journey... It's really funny and cheeky and Australian, without being parochially, nationalistically Australian." Minchin and Cripps then reworked the story with songs, successfully setting the project in motion. By 2014, Minchin's role expanded to directing the film, with Chris Miller joining him by 2016. In June 2014, 20th Century Fox announced that the film would be released on February 16, 2018. Following NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016, Universal Pictures took over the distribution rights for the film. Pre-Production In June 2016, it was announced that Minchin and Chris Miller were to direct the film while Margot Robbie, Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Rose Byrne, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver, Josh Lawson, Damon Herriman, and Ewen Leslie were to voice characters for the film. Cancellation In March 2017, Minchin announced on his personal blog that that the project had been cancelled. Minchin wrote on his blog, “I've recently been working in 3 different continents, missing my kids a lot, sleeping too little and not playing piano enough. And then a couple of days ago, the animated film to which I've dedicated the last 4 years of my life was shut down by the new studio execs. The only way I know how to deal with my impotent fury and sadness is to subject members of the public to the spectacle of me getting drunk and playing ballads.“ According to Deadline, the reason for the cancellation was that "creatively it just wasn't working out well." Trivia *Because of its cancellation, no DreamWorks Animation full-length films came out in the year 2018, making it the first year DreamWorks Animation has skipped a year since 1999. *This would have been the first DreamWorks Animation film to be released in February. **It would have also been Universal Pictures' second animated theatrical film released in February, after Curious George in 2006. **This would have been Dreamworks's fourth musical after The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, and Trolls. References Category:Cancelled Category:Films about animals Category:Movies Category:Musical films Category:Unseen flims